September Fishing on Shelbyville Means Getting through Turnover

by Steve Welch At last Labor Day!!!! Get those pesky wave runners and even worse the gigantic cigarette boats that just play hell on my fishing every summer. Not that I am not able to fish. The boats get so close to me that I get their waves coming over the back of my big Ranger and you always feel like you are on the high seas. The fish don’t care though. Last Saturday the clients and caught over a hundred white bass from just one location. Twenty-seven foot deep eight-feet off the bottom. Three hours of having three fish on at the same time. Now that is catching them.

With the cooling evenings and shorter days the lake will go through a great deal of change this month. Once the water temps on the surface reach the low sixty range the lake will flip flop. The warmer water down in the lake will rise to the surface and the cooler surface water will sink. This will stratify the oxygen levels in the lake and will allow the fish to move back shallow. The white bass will do it first and I spend the first half of the month casting to wind swept shallow flats and the back of coves.

I am always keeping a keen eye out for the crappie and will switch over to just fish for them. But if I can’t get enough good fish to provide the clients to take home I will remain on the white bass until about mid October. By then I know the fishing will be good. Good and shallow that is. The crappie will go up the feeder creeks and rivers just like they do in the spring and we can throw a cork and a jig suspended under it in just two or three feet of water. My kind of fishing and boy do they hit that jig.

This fall I will also be muskie fishing whenever I can. They will be shallow as well and a buck tail can hook you a real trophy. Shelbyville has sure got them. The south end of the lake has the most of them so I don’t get to go down there as much as I would like but I will make the effort this year as I have been buying all kinds of tackle in preparation for this pattern.

September for me also means the Crappie U.S.A. classic. I am one of the forty-eight teams that qualified on the semi-pro side and I will be there for six days of fishing on a lake that as of now I know nothing about. I am going over in mid August just to look around then back in September for the real deal. Thirty-eight thousand to the winners. It is an honor to have qualified and I am sure the whole event will blow me away. It is Crappie fishing's big dance.

This year with the addition of my web-site and my articles I have been guiding all summer and usually I slow down somewhat so I can take the wife and the boys if I can get them to go. But you know how busy teenagers are. Tina my best fishing partner in the world sure has had to take a back seat this year to the guide service and she hasn’t even got her summer tan as of yet. This will change soon as she is going with me to the classic. I love all the new clients though and I hope I can persuade some of them to go crappie fishing with me this fall and winter. I know between the deer, dove and goose seasons it is hard to squeeze in some fishing but it really is better than in the spring. More stable weather and water levels. Then you throw in the trees turning those beautiful shades of red and gold.

So book your fall trips soon as I only guide on weekends so that doesn’t leave many to go around and wish me luck in the classic.....See you on the water